Boom De Ah Dah
by Jason M. Lee
Summary: July 4 equals fireworks, and not just to celebrate a nation's birthday.


Disclaimers: Transformers © HasTak, IDW. _Transformers_ © HasTak, Dreamworks, Paramount. "Mythbusters" and "Boom de ah-dah" © Discovery Channel. "Kick it up a notch" from Emeril Lagasse, Food Network.

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**Boom De Ah-Dah  
**

Jason M. Lee

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They might be vastly different species of two entirely alien worlds but she had to admit, some things were truly universal.

Like various people's fascination with things that create explosions.

In this case, it was their adopted country's "birthday", however strange that sounded -- even more so was celebrating their first arrival. Thus, most their human friends -- namely the teens -- had all but gleefully introduced fireworks designed for consumer use. While most of the team had some experience with IEDs, some of Lennox's men had licenses on operating actual pyrotechnic materials and brought in those used by professionals for full shows.

Although from the looks on Ratchet and Prowl's faces, more than half of what Miles brought in weren't supposed to be in the hands of regular civilians in over ten states, much less California given its propensity for forest fires in the summer. Even Sam was a bit hesitant after pulling out a particularly large one, eyeing it like the dangerous "toy" it was.

"Miles, I was about eight when Dad pound into me about the dangers of recklessly playing with these guys, especially the illegal stuff..."

"C'mon, man! We got the perfect responsible adult supervision!" Miles waved his arms as if to punctuate his point. "Giant freakin' alien robots who know more about pyro stuff than we do! Who would they tell? My parents? Mikaela's aunt?"

"I might," Lennox spoke up wryly, Coke in hand as he passed by. "I AM one of the responsible adults who is supervising here."

The blonde immediately made warding gestures at that. "Okay, okay! WE won't set them off! You guys get to! There, problem solved!"

Mikaela had to hold back a snort at the barely visible smirk on the promoted Army major's face, Sam face-palming in exasperation.

As twilight crept over the Mojave, the whistling of small fireworks drew almost all of the Autobots outside to play (the "younger" ones) or simply to watch (the "mature" ones). Even if their pyrotechnics were more advanced, there was something about playing with sparklers that seemed to turn them into younglings and fledglings again. Wheeljack earned himself a WIDE amount of space when he began to take tinker with some of the illegal and professional grades, and the space widened when Perceptor and Skyfire eagerly joined the "Mad Engineer", which was frightening in itself.

Picking up a tiny sparkler, Arcee was surprised when an already burning one set hers off, and glanced over to see Bumblebee crouching down next to her. His other hand revealed one of the boxes Miles had brought, door-wings fluttering in a questioning pattern.

Had Judy been present to see that, she would've been gushing over the actions of her "older son", especially his door-wings. Somehow, and nobody knew when, she saw Bumblebee more as one of her own than as Sam's guardian and treated him as such. The scout didn't seem to mind and actually enjoyed it, whereas the "youngest" Witwicky was half-chagrined on gaining a responsible "big brother" but wasn't too off-put by it.

"Is there really any point to setting them off?" Arcee asked, partly-watching a lit wheel spin on its support, listening to the humans scatter from several run-away ground spinners, and partly-watching her former team leader carefully dig through the assortment.

Blue optics glittered brightly in amusement, lighting a helicopter that spat out various shades of purple sparks as it whirled through the air. "As that commercial song goes: _Boom de ah-dah, boom de ah-dah, boom de ah-dah, boom de ah-dah._"

She couldn't help but laugh, remembering how a couple mischievous members on base had taken to singing that line around Ironhide -- Sideswipe even slapped a "We want big boom" bumper sticker at one point on his rear fender, as someone had unwittingly left the TV on during a Mythbusters marathon. It was hard to tell whether Chromia was amused or not at that stunt, although the red Lamborghini was later put through his paces by her with a revamped and "kicked up several notches" training session based off of what the Rangers went through.

And speaking of "kicking up a notch", said black-armor Weapons Specialist rolled out to the area sectioned off by Lennox's men for safety while setting up their mortar racks. Large mortars pipes jutted from the Topkick's bed proudly, to which Arcee barely caught Ratchet muttering curses about having to deal with half burnt aft-heads and damaged audio receptors after this was over. At much of the others' urging, the fuchsia Firebolt was given the honors of setting off the first one as the newest arrival. The pyrotechnicians quickly took over when she fell back to spectator distance and soon the skies were lighting up, Jazz and Blaster broadcasting upbeat music over their speakers at near full volume partway through.

The grand finale resulted with the current Geek Squad letting loose what they had worked with, aerial displays far more complex and several designs some of the older Autobots hadn't seen since before their war started. The music playing 'bots followed through with an amped bass and full volume 1812 Overture, large grins on their faces despite the rattling the vibrations were inducing.

Celebrating a nation's birthday and their arrival seemed a strange idea but Arcee had to admit, as Mikaela set off several bumblebee fireworks that emitted gold sparks as they flitted like their namesakes, their adopted country certainly had a beautiful way of celebrating it.

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A/N: Eh, something random to celebrate 2K7 _TF _first birthday and US, even if it's late by a week.

"I was about eight when Dad pound into me about the dangers..." line is borrowed and tweaked with permission from **Epona Harper**'s "Storyteller".


End file.
